Trademark Office 2

The stem cell article by Jennifer Washburn in the April 12, 2006 issue of the Los Angeles Times mentioned Jeanne Loring, an embryologist at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla: In 1999, Loring tried to launch a company to work with stem cells, but the firm quickly collapsed when it couldn’t raise the $100,000 in upfront fees the Wisconsin foundation [WARF] charged.

Washburn’s article did not mention an earlier article by Loring and co-author Cathryn Campbell, entitled “Intellectual Property and Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research,” which appeared in 311 Science 1716 on March 24, 2006. Therein, Loring and Campbell mentioned the changing royalty fees charged by WARF in response to a “memo of understanding” (MOU) with the

federal funding agency. Loring/Campbell mentioned the “SBIR paradox” as to funding of small businesses, which may be a problem, but not one associated with patent law.

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The stem cell article by Jennifer Washburn in the April 12, 2006 issue of the Los Angeles Times mentioned Jeanne Loring, an embryologist at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla: In 1999, Loring tried to launch a company to work with stem cells, but the firm quickly collapsed when it couldn’t raise the $100,000 in upfront fees the Wisconsin foundation [WARF] charged.

Washburn’s article did not mention an earlier article by Loring and co-author Cathryn Campbell, entitled “Intellectual Property and Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research,” which appeared in 311 Science 1716 on March 24, 2006. Therein, Loring and Campbell mentioned the changing royalty fees charged by WARF in response to a “memo of understanding” (MOU) with the

federal funding agency. Loring/Campbell mentioned the “SBIR paradox” as to funding of small businesses, which may be a problem, but not one associated with patent law.

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1. What is a Trademark?
A trademark can be any word, slogan, design, symbol, or even a color, smell, product configuration or a combination of these, used to identify the source of origin of particular goods and services. The trademark serves as a source identifier of your goods and services, to distinguish it from the goods and services of others. For example, Nike has a registered trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO ). Their mark is used to distinguish their goods and services over other shoe companies. Nike actually owns several trademarks, including design marks as well, such as their swoosh symbol.

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“Lawsuits primarily benefit the attorneys and nobody else.”
- Bryce’s Law

INTRODUCTION

The protection of intellectual property should be a significant concern to all Information Technology organizations. Without protection, commercial hardware/software vendors would quickly evaporate as others would inevitably steal their designs and programs. Corporate developers would also suffer if their ideas, inventions, and programs were misappropriated thereby causing them to lose their competitive advantage. In fact, our corporate landscape and standard of living would be radically different if we had no such protection. Fortunately, the framers of the U.S. Constitution were wise enough to implement legislation safeguarding the authorship and ownership of literature, art, and inventions, thus causing the United States to flourish in the

arts and sciences. But the advent of the computer caused us to reconsider how we safeguard such property. For example, the concept of a computer program has been a bit nebulous to some people; should the source code be protected by copyright? What about the object code (executable)? Attorneys have been debating this subject over the last thirty years and there is still
general confusion in the field.

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Recently in Maine, I talked with a gentleman and we discussed at a coffee shop the issues concerning the Patent and Trademark Offices and the slow processing problems with registration of everything from a simple patent or concept patent to a Registered Trademark or Service Mark. Also this past week had an email conversation with a gentleman from NC in a small business regarding weak trademark and service mark case law in several states and at the Federal Level and how that affected him and the owner of a mark in Ohio. Also discussed the issues with an Aussie who now lives in BC Canada with regards to a cross border US Competitor using a name he intends to

use and has already used in Canadian Commerce. First use laws and case laws are different that in Canada and the US. And certainly no trademark is worth a dollar in China. Some would disagree if you have the right attorney there in that country. I had mentioned these types of issues in a letter to the FTC and discussed the problems with patent law and not knowing, the patent books, which explain all this are over 400 plus pages now and when you are done reading them you may or may not know enough to get the job done.

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